Really, must parents act so entitled?

Jan 27, 2013
 
By Rachel Chang
 

One quality I've always considered integral in the Singaporean identity is an ironclad sense of entitlement.

Whatever we are given, we always want to know why we didn't get more. Maybe our schools have taught us too well that critical analysis is the only appropriate response to any statement.

And the most entitled people in this entitled population are Singaporean parents. They're fuelled by a potent mix of martyrdom and self-pity, salted over by a lack of sleep and intense body anxiety.

Because the national discourse is so relentlessly self-flagellating about the low birth rate, they are simultaneously self-congratulatory about having given their lives to something "noble", while intensely aware of how they are "losing out" by choosing to have kids in a childless nation.

This is like a multiple personality disorder, which they cope with by being convinced that they should be compensated twice over for starting a family.

Canvassing reactions to the enhanced Marriage and Parenthood Package for the news stories published last week was like taking a museum tour of Middle Class Entitled Parents. Those in this group seem to live by the creed that "to those whom much has been given, much more should be given".

In Singapore, primary and secondary school education is already almost free, and there are subsidies for pre-school for low-income families.

But the Entitled Parent seems to think that I, a childless taxpayer, should also pay for their childcare and kindergarten costs.

That's fine with me actually - as long as we also split your kid's pay cheque when he starts work.

And when told that they can rent subsidised flats from the Government while waiting for their own, some wondered why the flats couldn't be free, or why they couldn't be given priority for private housing.

I can hear it now, the favourite riposte of the childbearing: You don't understand because you don't have a kid.

It's true that I don't have personal knowledge of starting a family while running the Singapore rat race.

And I don't mean to denigrate the miracle of childbirth. In fact, I actually do want to be a mother one day.

But I don't see why the passage of another human being through my birth canal would magically entitle me to special treatment.

I respect parents and all the sacrifices they make for their kids, but come on, they're not amputees running a marathon, or quadriplegics painting watercolours with a brush in the mouth. I don't feel sufficiently moved by the plight of Singaporean parents to donate to their cause, which they seem to expect me to do. A tuition arms race and "overly hard exam papers" somehow do not arouse in me the sadness and desire to help that abused animals or victims of natural disasters do.

I must have a heart made of stone. (By the way, examinations are supposed to be difficult.)

When Singaporean parents ask for more, what I hear are people expecting to be paid for their adult choices.

But if that were the way the world works, then I am waiting on reimbursement for the holidays I've taken and the books and DVDs I've bought to fill up all my child-free time.

These won't even pay off in the future, as kids will. They're supposed to grow up and take care of you in your old age, right? My shoe collection won't do that.

But when I choose to buy a pair of shoes, I don't whine about a heels-unfriendly environment, or the lack of adequate shoe storage space in my flat, or shifting social mores that discourage shoe ownership.

The choice is mine, as are the consequences.

Don't get me wrong. I do think that improving the country's birth rate is an important societal goal.

But it isn't a pure public good that the state has the responsibility to pay for, like national defence.

It's more like tertiary education - there is some public benefit to society, but a lot of it is private benefit. Just like the way a university degree will pay for itself (unless you're an Arts student) in future income, kids will also pay you back.

Literally, like when they send the monthly cheque to the old folk's home. Or figuratively, in joy and hope, so on and so forth. Laughs and life lessons, et cetera.

Parents can certainly look forward to a meaningful, fulfilling life when they embark on the child-rearing journey, and I look forward to it one day too.

But that's about all they should feel entitled to.

Everything else is a bonus, and the least us childless taxpayers should get is a thank you.

rchang@sph.com.sg

America, a can't do nation?

Jan 27, 2013

The US political system seems incapable of solving many of the problems the country faces
 
By Chua Chin Hon Us Bureau Chief In Washington
 

From a lonely field in Pennsylvania where one of the hijacked Sept 11 planes crash-landed to the small Illinois city where Mr Barack Obama launched his presidential ambition, my job has taken me to some uncommon parts of the United States in the last four years.

The one place I remember above all is a quiet corner of West Virginia called Huntington.

In June 2010, my wife and I spent a week there in an attempt to understand why it had come to be known as the "fattest city in America".

What struck me as our interviews wore on was not so much the severity of the problem - a third to about half the adults were obese, depending on which report you believe - but the sense of resignation in the community.

Even Pastor Steve Willis, one of the city's staunchest health advocates, was conflicted about whether Huntington could genuinely do anything about the larger socioeconomic forces driving the problem - local poverty, entrenched social habits and problematic national policies (government subsidies for corn instead of vegetables or fruit), to name a few.

"I would say that we are not divided on the fact that something needs to be done," he told us in an interview at his church. "I think we are divided on whether there is something we can do to make it better. And many people have told me there isn't something better we can spend our time on because we can't fix this."

This "can't do" attitude that Pastor Willis talked about strikes a deep chord with me because it resonates with much of what I've experienced in Washington, where political dysfunction has sunk to new depths.

Congress and the White House, for instance, somehow cannot agree on new or even modest ways to jumpstart the economy despite four years of unacceptably high unemployment and knowing that at least 12 million Americans are out of work.

A jobs Bill proposed by President Obama in September 2011 went nowhere. Republicans appear to have no new ideas beyond their standard proposals to cut taxes and reduce government regulations.

Meanwhile, efforts to rein in the country's worrying fiscal deficit have become a farce. Mr Obama commissioned a high-powered bipartisan panel in February 2010 to find new ways of addressing the problem, only to distance himself from the report when it was released later that year.

A "super committee" was later formed to produce legislation that would cut government spending by US$1.2 trillion (S$1.5 trillion) over 10 years. The effort failed, and in turn triggered a series of automatic spending cuts due to kick in from this year.

But fearing a new recession, lawmakers passed new measures on New Year's Day to postpone the cuts by two more months. It is unclear what they will eventually do about the spending cuts.

The most frustrating example of this "can't do" attitude in America is the one involving gun control. Even after 20 children and six adults were gunned down in cold blood in a Connecticut school last month, the prevailing view is that Mr Obama's efforts to rein in gun violence will go nowhere.

The National Rifle Association, the pro-gun lobby group, is simply too powerful, many say. Others insist there is insufficient public support for a ban on assault weapons or that Republicans and right-wing groups can never be persuaded to go along with putting a limit on Americans' constitutional rights to bear arms.

A similar vein of excuses runs through other tough issues on the horizon, from climate change to immigration reform.

Yes, democracy is slow and often messy in a big and complex country. I also realise that the US political system is designed precisely to prevent big changes from being rushed through.

But isn't America the country synonymous with the "can do" spirit? I had assumed so.

In fact, I moved from Beijing to Washington four years ago precisely because I was drawn to the idea of travelling around America to cover stories about how the country would reinvent itself following a deep recession and a historic election.

I found the reality check all the more jarring, given the country's undiminished strengths and relentless drive elsewhere, such as in top-class research.

Between 2008 and 2012, arguably the rockiest patch for the US economy in recent memory, the country still managed to produce a total of 31 Nobel Prize winners, more than several of the next best performing countries combined.

The top American companies, from Apple to Google to Facebook, also continued to be fiercely competitive and innovative, churning out products like the iPad that consumers around the world crave.

So what makes Washington uniquely incapable of solving problems?

For starters, that is not what preoccupies both parties most of the time.

When I was covering the presidential campaign last year, it quickly became apparent to me that the cutting edge of American politics was not in the business of governance but in electoral warfare.

Take Mr Obama's campaign team, which faced a near-impossible mission of helping to get an incumbent re-elected in the face of four years of high unemployment and rising public disgruntlement.

They responded by bringing in some of the country's top behavioural scientists to help the campaign figure out how best to counter malicious rumours about Mr Obama and compel their own supporters to turn up at the polls.

A crack team of 300 digital, technology and data experts was assembled in the Obama campaign's Chicago headquarters to try to predict the behaviour of millions of American voters, develop in-house software, and analyse a growing mountain of electoral data.

By some accounts, the Obama campaign's analytics team ran 66,000 simulations each night to try to predict who would prevail in the battleground states.

The Romney campaign did not do any of this cutting-edge technological stuff. But it was exceedingly adept at raising big dollar donations.

Both campaigns raised a record US$2 billion to wage round-the-clock political battles on the airwaves and the Internet, a Herculean feat considering the tough economic times.

Some thought things would change for the better after last year's election since Mr Obama could not run for a third term, thereby removing a key source of anxiety for the Republicans.

Mr Obama famously said last year that he thought the Republicans' all-out opposition to his agenda would break like a fever after the election.

But the signs are that temperatures in the Republican camp are going up, not down.

At a private luncheon last Tuesday, just a day after Mr Obama's second inauguration, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said: "We are expecting here, over the next 22 months, to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party.

"I do believe that is their goal - to just shove us into the dustbin of history."

Translated, this means Mr Boehner and his Republican colleagues are already gearing up to protect their turf and perhaps launch new offensives for the 2014 and 2016 elections.

This bodes ill for the Obama administration's plan to introduce immigration reforms and tighter gun control laws, to say nothing of even tougher tasks such as entitlement reform.

These days, I wonder whether Washington is still the best place to observe the future of US power and influence, given the endless rounds of futile political posturing and brinkmanship.

As a result of Mr Obama's decision to "pivot" towards Asia - a new foreign policy strategy whose success will depend much on whether the US can get its own fiscal house in order - the view of Washington from Singapore, Beijing or even Naypyidaw might prove far more interesting.

I am looking forward to testing this proposition when I return to Asia. If nothing else, it would be a welcome return to a part of the world where election politics hasn't become a permanent fixture.

chinhon@sph.com.sg

The writer and his wife, Tracy Quek, have been based in Washington for The Straits Times since 2009 and end their term this month.

The dirty truth about Singapore

Dec 30, 2012

Singaporeans' poor social graces a result of a weak sense of community
 
By Han Fook Kwang
 

I couldn't find any public dustbins in Taipei where I was visiting about a week ago.

The city was clean and as well kept as any I have seen elsewhere.

But nobody throws rubbish here? What happens if you've a piece of tissue paper you want to get rid of?

Leave it in the pocket?

That's what the Taiwanese do, said my guide. They dispose of it when they get home so they can separate what can be recycled from the rest.

That's really impressive, I thought, especially considering how difficult it is to get Singaporeans to recycle their waste, let alone carry it home with them.

I had to remind myself I was in Taipei, not Tokyo where you expect the Japanese to be ultra civic-minded.

It was one of several surprises about Taipei and its people, which overturned my previous preconceptions about the place.

Truth is I didn't know very much about Taiwan, not having visited for more than 20 years - I was last there on a brief news assignment.

Much of what I knew came from reading the papers and watching the news on television, and it was mostly negative - the unruly politics, fist fights in Parliament, and headline-grabbing melodramatic elections (remember the mysterious shooting of then President Chen Shui-bian a day before the 2004 presidential election?).

There were other revelations from my visit.

At Taipei's MRT stations, commuters waited in orderly, single-line queues for trains, a sight you don't see here in Singapore, and their trains are just as crowded.

(Second reminder - it's not Tokyo.)

But the stand-out observation of my four-day visit was the service at restaurants.

It was better than Tokyo's.

These were not fine-dining places that I visited, where you expect service to be good, but popular ones such as Din Tai Fung and T.G.I. Friday's, both of which are also in Singapore.

I have never experienced such personal, enthusiastic and know-ledgeable service anywhere in the world - and from very young waiters barely out of school.

It was packed in Din Tai Fung, so you couldn't say the exceptional service was because it was a slow day there.

The issue of how to get Singaporeans to be more civic-minded has been an evergreen one because there are too many examples of bad behaviour which have gone uncorrected for too long.

Commuters blocking the way of those getting off the trains, diners not returning their trays at hawker centres and foodcourts, residents not recycling their waste, moviegoers using their mobile phones in cinemas. Many visitors have also commented that the city isn't as clean as it used to be and more people have been caught littering in public places.

The list goes on.

That's not even including how motorists behave on the road - top of my hate list being the way they accelerate instead of giving way the moment they see another driver signalling to get into their lane.

It's often said we're a First World economy but without the accompanying social graces, and that it'll take another generation before we get there.

It was such a refreshing change to visit a city where you could see a qualitative difference in social behaviour and attitude towards one another, and which was not so culturally or economically different from Singapore that it seems like an alien place.

It's how I feel about Japan - it sets a very high standard for courteous behaviour and public-spiritedness but Japanese society is hard to fathom and the social codes are so opaque to outsiders it seems like a world apart.

Singaporeans will never be like them, so there's no point studying how they do it.

But Taiwan is predominantly Chinese, and much more similar to Singapore.

It disproves the point that some people here have made that one reason for the mediocre service in retail shops and restaurants is that Chinese people are not known to be service-oriented, unlike say Thais or Filipinos.

Taiwan proves this wrong.

But if it was just about service, it wouldn't be such a big issue.

A Gallup survey put Singaporeans right at the bottom of 148 countries for lacking emotion and for being the least positive.

You could argue with the flawed way the survey was done, as many critics have done, but it still sucks to be bottom of the class.

More disconcerting was the finding of the World Giving Index two weeks ago that Singaporeans were one of the least likely people in the world (140th out of 146) to have helped a stranger in the past month.

As for giving money to charity, the score wasn't great either - 53rd, and way behind other South-east Asian countries such as Indonesia and Thailand.

I couldn't think of a worse dampener to the year-end celebrations.

Many reasons have been given for Singapore being so far behind in these softer aspects of our development.

Among several: Because we're a fast-paced, competitive economy in a densely populated urban city, people here have less time to be nice to one another. And that we're a society in which just a generation ago, many among our parents came from some of the poorest villages in China and India and who might not have grown out of their peasant habits.

But Hong Kong is just as compactly populated with immigrants from a similar background, yet it ranked 19th in the overall index, 95 places ahead of Singapore.

America is one of the most competitive economies in the world and was rated fifth.

I believe there is a common thread running through societies that do so much better than others in this area.

It has to do with having a strong sense of community and identity among the people, that they are in it together and so have to look out for one another.

It's like being part of a family, no one needs to be told to do his or her part for the other - it should come naturally because the ties that bind are as strong as Mother Earth.

When I asked a colleague who has worked in Taipei what accounts for the behaviour I observed there, she said there were many reasons, one of which was that things became noticeably better as a result of the civic movement during the years leading to the lifting of martial law in 1987.

Those were the years of political and social awakening in Taiwan when the people became more involved and participated more actively in the issues that mattered to Taiwan.

As a result, they developed a stronger sense of Taiwanese identity.

Their politics is often ugly and the economy has been sluggish for some time, but they appear to have made greater strides on the social front.

For Singapore, the challenge is greater than in a homogeneous society like Taiwan.

It is why all those top-down campaigns to get people to return food trays, stop littering, or move to the back of buses will have only limited success because Singaporeans don't feel strongly enough that they are one community and will look after one another.

That's the painful truth and acknowledging it is necessary before progress can be made.

Forging those bonds requires action, not words, from as many people as possible doing things for the common good, and not for themselves and their families. That means a much more vibrant civic society, one where Singaporeans truly believe they have an active part to play in shaping the future of this place.

The more civic organisations, interest groups, non-governmental organisations, charities and volunteers there are doing their bit in whatever area they are interested in, the greater will be this sense of community and ownership.

Conversely, if it's all done by the Government, the weaker the bonds.

But it also requires the Government to respect and support the work done by these groups.

There's clearly much more at stake than just uncleared food trays.

Why focusing on costs raises health spending

Jan 03, 2013


Singapore is to embark on a major review of health-care costs this year. In a new book out next week, David Goldhill analyses what ails America's health financing system, and explains why cost-plus funding leads to higher prices for medical services all round.


IN 1983, the Ronald Reagan administration enacted one of the most significant cost reforms in Medicare's history. The prospective payment system switched inpatient hospital reimbursement from open-ended fee-for-service to fixed fees, paid per diagnosis.

In theory, this would give hospitals the incentive to treat patients as quickly and economically as possible.

The new rules did drive big changes. Since 1983, the total number of days spent by Medicare patients in hospitals has fallen 40 per cent, even as the number of Medicare enrollees has risen 60 per cent. The average inpatient stay is now just over five days, down from 10.

But even an improvement in efficiency of such magnitude failed to slow the cost train. As the number of hospital days declined, the daily charge to Medicare rose to US$1,800 (S$2,200), from US$300.

The prospective payment system is only one obvious example of a long trend.

Most of the major developments in health care - higher doctor productivity, diagnostic scans, new pharmaceuticals, minimally invasive surgery - could be described as increasing health-care productivity. None of these achievements have lowered prices.

Cost fallacy

WHY not? Strange as it seems, cost is only mildly relevant to the price of care. In the world of health care, cost control is based on the fallacy that there is a fixed amount of care we need. Presumably, the more efficiently it's performed, the cheaper it will be. This ignores how providers actually respond to changes in their business. By focusing relentlessly on the cost of care, we actually drive it up.

To understand why this is inescapable, ask yourself: What would you rather pay for the items you buy - whatever price a retailer charges; or a small amount, say 5 per cent, above the retailer's cost?

Take your time; it's a trick question.

The cost-based pricing seems like the better deal. We imagine going into a store, learning that the merchant paid $10 for a sweater, and buying that sweater for only $10.50. But this assumes that, once you opt for cost-based pricing, the costs will stay the same. In reality, the cost-plus-5 per cent system will change the merchant's economic incentives - so the next sweater the store buys will "cost" far more than $10.

Imagine the impact cost-plus would have on the world's simplest business. Your daughter sets up a lemonade stand outside your house and charges a dollar a cup. (That number just seemed right to her.) She sells 50 cups to people passing by each day.

One day the mayor comes along. He's running for re-election, and he wants to buy a cup of lemonade every week for all 1,000 residents of the town. He doesn't want to pay $1,000 a week, though, so he suggests paying your daughter a "fair" profit of 50 per cent. He knows each cup contains about 10 cents worth of lemons and sugar, so he figures he'll be paying 15 cents a serving.

The moment your daughter agrees to this deal, however, she will try to increase her costs, because higher costs mean bigger profits. She is better off with more expensive lemons and sugar, larger cups (maybe even glasses), an assistant to run the stand and a new Lemonada 5000 mixer, which guarantees a perfect mix of sugar and lemon in every glass.

The mayor is no idiot. He sees what is happening, so he renegotiates his deal. From now on, he'll pay her costs plus 5 cents a cup. Unfortunately, this also creates perverse incentives. Your daughter can make more money by reducing the size of each cup. Or she can cut back on customer service, hygiene or speed. Or she can cut side deals with her vendors: The lemon seller can raise his prices - passed on to the mayor - and share the proceeds with your daughter.

The cost of manipulation

BIZARRELY, a cost-based pricing structure actually adds a new major cost: the effort it takes to track, manipulate and justify costs. In a US$2.5 trillion industry such as health care, these activities are a big reason that administrative costs exceed US$300 billion a year.

An Economist article on dialysis perfectly illustrates the inflationary impact of cost-plus pricing. Because United States clinics are paid on a cost-plus basis, they prefer expensive drugs to cheaper ones. In fact, many appear to order drugs in units that exceed what a standard dosage requires, because they can charge the government for the waste. The article noted that many clinics preferred an injected drug with a price of US$4,100 a year over the identical drug in oral form, priced at only US$450 a year.

Not surprisingly, the manufacturer of the oral drug responded by increasing its price above that of the injected version, to make it more competitive.

America's entire health-care system suffers from what I call the cost illusion - the idea that a service has a long-term fixed cost. But every cost is merely someone else's price. And over time, costs themselves are also determined by prices.

What is the cost of orthopaedic surgery? It is the sum of all the costs of the underlying components - the surgeon, anaesthesiologist, nurses, hospital, device, tests and drugs.

But how are these costs determined? Let's look at the orthopaedic surgeon. We may believe there is some objective way to measure the cost of his time - a fair return on his years of education or training, say. In reality, the cost of the surgeon's time depends on the value of orthopaedic surgery to patients. If more patients need it, the surgeon's time becomes more valuable. In a free market, there are two ways the cost of his time could decline: more orthopaedic surgeons fighting for business, or patients benefiting less from orthopaedic surgery.

In an administered market such as health care, on the other hand, our surrogates - insurers and Medicare - substitute their calculation of cost for the workings of supply and demand. This has the strange effect of preventing costs from ever falling.

Let's say Medicare sets the reimbursement rate for a hip replacement at US$15,000. Now say a new drug is invented that makes hip replacements less useful. In a free market, the price would decline. But in an administered system, these prices are viewed as costs, and once set, there is no mechanism to lower them. A hip replacement still takes the same amount of time from surgeons of the same degree of expertise, so the cost must still be $15,000.

In health care, America's system is designed to shield patients from even knowing the prices. Unfortunately, a world without prices is also one that can't achieve the purpose of prices: the allocation of resources to match what consumers want.

Five weeks after my father died from a hospital-borne infection in the intensive care unit of a New York City hospital, my mother received a bill for his treatment - US$635,695.75! The bill was broken down into 17 items. Had I booked dad a room at the most expensive hotel in town for the five weeks of his illness, filled the room with a million dollars' worth of hospital equipment leased for US$15,000 a month, given him round-the-clock nursing care, and paid a physician to spend an hour a day with him (roughly 50 minutes more than at the hospital), it would total roughly US$150,000.

That leaves US$500,000 left over for, say, drugs (billed at US$145,431), oxygen (US$41,695) and blood (US$30,248).

This comparison with actual prices is absurd, of course, because it assumes that the prices on my father's bill were real prices. No one was actually supposed to pay that bill. The prices didn't even bear a relationship to the exchange of funds for dad's treatment. The hospital billed my mother for her share (US$992), which she wisely didn't pay and the hospital wisely didn't try to collect. Medicare paid the hospital according to its concept of the hospital's cost. Of course, there's no question what the competitive price would be for the service of killing my father: zero.

Prescription costs

A STUNTED price system also distorts investment in new treatments. US pharmaceutical companies spent roughly US$67 billion in 2010 on research to develop new drugs. But many of these new drugs target conditions for which perfectly good drugs already exist. It is the lack of consumer prices that explains their me-too approach.

Once a new drug is approved, it enters the marketplace at a high reimbursement rate, compensating the manufacturer for its expensive research. So what's the punishment for entering a crowded market? Very little. Furthermore, even with a promising new entrant, the prices of the existing drugs don't decline; they have already been set to compensate for their "costs". In any normal market, a new entrant would bear not only the risk of being rejected, but also the risk of a price war.

Administered pricing also explains why America's health-care industry has spent far too little on information technology. Your dry cleaner computerised his inventory system because losing a shirt may mean losing a payment or even a customer. But a doctor who invests in state-of-the-art patient data management can't charge higher prices; insurers won't pay. Nor is there a market mechanism to force hospitals that use paper records to accept lower prices - they don't benefit from being more efficient. So the investment is never made.

If we, the consumers, saw and paid prices, we would be looking at a very different industry. My guess is that many of us would pay only for doctors who spend more time talking to us, providers who invest in computerised records, genuinely better treatments rather than me-too drugs for chronic conditions, and hospitals that kill fewer patients.

The writer is president and chief executive of cable TV network GSN. This is an excerpt from his new book, Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father - And How We Can Fix It, to be published on Jan 8 by Alfred A. Knopf.

The ST reprint above was just part 1. The whole series are here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-01/focus-on-health-care-costs-causes-more-spending.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-02/obamacare-math-doesn-t-add-up-to-a-healthier-u-s-.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-03/to-fix-health-care-turn-patients-into-customers.html

Gun Control: Illustrating the policy paralysis of the US govt.

Dec 24, 2012

Guns and poses: A barrel of deceptions

By gail collins


WELL, the Mayans were sort of right.

The world didn't implode when their calendar stopped on Dec 21. But the National Rifle Association (NRA) did call for putting guns in every American school in a press conference that had a sort of civilisation-hits-a- dead-end feel to it.

And we learnt that negotiations on averting a major economic crisis in the US had come to a screeching halt because House Speaker John Boehner lost the support of the far-right contingent of his already-pretty-damned- conservative caucus. We have seen the future, and everything involves negotiating with loony people.

Mr Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the NRA, has major sway in Congress when it comes to gun issues. So his press conference, in which he read a rambling, unyielding statement in a quavering voice, while refusing to take any questions, could not have inspired confidence that the national trauma over the shooting at a Connecticut elementary school was going to be resolved anytime soon.

Mr LaPierre immediately identified the problem that led to a young man mowing down children with a semi-automatic rifle: gun-free school zones. ("They tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem.") Then he demanded a police officer in every American school. Or maybe a scheme to recruit armed volunteers.

At around the same time he was speaking last Friday, a gunman in Pennsylvania killed three people after shooting up a rural church. We will await the next grand plan for arming ministers.

The idea that having lots of guns around is the best protection against gun violence is a fairy tale the NRA tells itself when it goes to sleep at night. But an armed security officer at Columbine High School was no help. History also shows that armed civilians tend to freeze up during mass shootings - for good reason, since usually the only way a crazed gunman gets stopped is when he runs out of ammunition. So what remains is an excellent argument for banning weapons that spray lots of bullets.

However unhinged Mr LaPierre might have seemed to the casual observer, he sent a clear message to members of Congress who fear the wrath of the NRA: No compromise on banning assault weapons or any gun control issue. That made it hard to imagine any reform getting past the great, gaping maw that is the House of Representatives.

The magic of the House Republican majority was on show when the Tea Party forces blocked Mr Boehner's plan to continue the Bush tax cuts for incomes under US$1 million (S$1.2 million) a year. This was around the time the Speaker recited the prayer, much beloved by 12-step programmes, about seeking the serenity to accept things you cannot change.

Mr Boehner's Bill was mainly a political ploy, so in a way, its defeat was meaningless. Except that it would be comforting not to believe that one of the critical players in Washington was always at the mercy of the loopy-extremist wing in his caucus.

Like Kansas congressman Tim Huelskamp who, last Friday, represented the House resistance forces on MSNBC's Morning Joe, in an appearance with great Mayan overtones. First, he gradually acknowledged he was never going to vote for anything that raised taxes on anybody, even if it was understood by the entire world to be a negotiating tactic to win massive spending cuts and avert massive tax increases on 99.8 per cent of the population.

Then the discussion turned to the Connecticut shooting, and Mr Huelskamp quickly announced that the US did not have a gun problem. "It's a people problem. It's a culture problem," he insisted. Anyone who disagreed - like President Barack Obama - was, he said, using a tragedy "to push a political agenda".

In conclusion, the congressman announced that he had an 11-year-old son, "and I have a choice whether he's allowed to play those video games. What I would suggest to mums and dads across this country is look at what your children are doing... And I'm not saying to pass a single law about that, because I think that would be politicising the issue". Which we really hate. Politicising.

There are so many ways we'd rather be celebrating the holidays. We would like to be gathering around the tree with loved ones, discussing current events in the form of that story about the theft of six million pounds of syrup from the strategic maple syrup reserve in Quebec.

But we are where we are. Mr Obama bid a Merry Christmas to the nation after announcing that he would try to re-avert the feared "fiscal cliff" with a Bill that resolves virtually nothing but avoiding tax rises for the middle class. "At the very least, let's agree right now on what we already agree on," he said. This is what currently passes for a wildly optimistic statement.

Meanwhile, a congressman from Wisconsin, angry about the failure to pass a farm Bill, warned that the nation was about to fall over "the Dairy Cliff". At least there's still eggnog. God bless us every one.

NEW YORK TIMES SYNDICATE


ST Editorial:
Finding courage to act on guns

MOST of the civilised world would be amazed at the parsing of the gun debate in the United States, so soon after the Connecticut school massacre had pricked the nation's collective conscience. Surely, revulsion over the killing of children in their classrooms would instigate resolute action to curb easy access to firearms, even though past mass shootings barely affected gun ownership. Moreover, tighter controls, over which President Barack Obama should push harder, could reduce crimes other than murder in which firearms are often used as an aid, like robbery, rape and grievous assault.

But far from fostering a moral distaste for guns, Americans are rushing to stock them in the event of selective proscription by Congress. How the gun lobby has tried to turn the agenda around, after an initial burst of citizen and political activism for controls, shows it knows the American people will concede that the issue is more complex than it seems. Take away half the guns in private hands, pro-gun people are suggesting, and see if the rate of violent crime will fall proportionately.

The dreadful thing is that they may have a point. Disturbed people primed to go on a shooting spree will obtain what weapons they need. One statistic has it that murder by firearms in America is 20 times worse than in 22 other rich countries with a comparable crime variety. Ready availability, surely, is implicated. But the US rate for murder by means other than guns is also higher, by seven times. The case against guns is then less than clear-cut, although anti-gun advocates will counter that this is semantic relativism. It well may be. But psychologists and criminologists advise that consideration of laws on gun ownership cannot be detached from the issue of violence depicted in films and video games that desensitises people to violence. Young people interface with peers via a computer more than face to face. How this might affect the psyche over the long term is still being studied, but ill effects are feared. There is a case for personality maladjustments to be considered too in analysing American gun culture.

Rather than let the debate get tied up in knots, good sense should prevail. After Connecticut, the Norway mass murder of teenagers and periodic knife attacks on schoolchildren in China, it is amoral to let policy paralysis set in. The issue the US faces is one of political choice. Gun lovers led by the National Rifle Association have sway over federal elective choices in many rural states. America is poised on a pre- and post-Connecticut divide. Public opinion abhors the permissiveness, but it is up to elected leaders to rein it in by changing laws in the public interest.

[Gun Control in the US is highly politicised issue. However, the majority of US citizens are in favour of some form of gun control regulations, because very simply, it is the obvious thing to do. BUT, the very powerful gun lobby, fronted by the National Rifle Association (NRA), has blocked the will of the people.

Similarly, the looming "fiscal cliff" is an issue that the US govt needs to urgently address, but the issue has been politicised. Most US citizens are in favour of raising taxes on the very very rich (top 1% or 2%), but the Republicans are blocking the will of the people.

There's democracy for you.

Democracy is about expressing the will of the people. The other part of democracy is accepting the will of the people. Except in the US, where no one has to accept anything he doesn't agree with.]

Commentary: The case for Gun Control after NewTown/Sandy Hook

21 Dec 2012

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook/Newtown shooting where 20 children were shot, some several times, the US is looking at the issue of gun control again.

And again, the gun-right advocates are fighting public opinion and common sense and rallying around the 2nd Amendment. Their argument is that more guns is the answer. That if the teachers were also armed, the killer would have been stopped earlier. That the principal tried to stop the killer even though the principal was unarmed. What if she were?

The fact is that in a gun-fire scenario, it takes skill to make a proper and safe tactical assessment of the situation to decide what is the proper action. Case in point is the action of Joe Zamudio in the Tucson, Arizona shooting where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot.

That's what happens when you run with a firearm to a scene of bloody havoc. In the chaos and pressure of the moment, you can shoot the wrong person. Or, by drawing your weapon, you can become the wrong person—a hero mistaken for a second gunman by another would-be hero with a gun. Bang, you're dead. Or worse, bang bang bang bang bang: a firefight among several armed, confused, and innocent people in a crowd. It happens even among trained soldiers. Among civilians, the risk is that much greater.

More guns? Not the answer.

Transforming an island from nothing

Dec 21, 2012

How did Singapore build a "paradise" island from "nothing"? The key is good public administration based on a realistic understanding of human nature
 
By wen quan
 

SINGAPORE'S success is nothing short of a miracle.

From a small country with no hinterland or huge domestic market, no natural resources, and not even a natural freshwater river, it managed to enter the ranks of the world's developed countries after more than 40 years of hard work.

People of different races, religions, languages, cultures and lifestyles co-exist in harmony and progress in today's Singapore.

Even though an illegal strike by China bus drivers took place recently, the tripartite partnership of Government, employers and workers is a consultative and cooperative relationship which shares the fruits and challenges of development.

Singapore today is politically stable and peaceful. It is also dynamic, vibrant and prosperous. While other places in the world are facing debt and fiscal crises, corruption, racial hatred, terrorist attacks and extremism, this small island-state would seem to be a paradise.

How did Singapore create "something" out of "nothing" and develop into what it is today? What is the recipe for its success?

Understanding human nature

MANY people feel that the key reason is Singapore's public policies and management. But which public policy is the most important? Which policy is fundamental to the country's success?

I feel that the main reason for Singapore's successful implementation of its public policy and administration is that its leaders and government have a comprehensive, deep and objective understanding of human nature.

The policies and laws they formulate take into consideration basic features of human behaviour so that as far as possible, they prevent public policies from bowing to the weaker side of human nature, while at the same time fulfilling and reacting to its reasonable needs and desires.

For example, there is almost no free public service in Singapore, whether it is going to school, seeing a doctor or even applying for an identity card (IC). Singaporeans call it co-payment. The Government feels that services will be abused if they are free.

While many developing countries are implementing, or hoping to implement, totally free education, few people believe that in Singapore, a developed country where the gross domestic product per capita is more than US$50,000 (S$61,000), its citizens still have to pay school fees (albeit at low rates).

Fees differ for services. For example, a person who loses his IC has to pay $100 for the first replacement and wait for one month. For second or subsequent losses, the fee is $300 and the waiting period is three months.

Such policies reflect an understanding of human behaviour. Singapore's leaders understand the human tendency to seek gains and avoid risk or trouble. They put to full use this aversion to risk or inconvenience in their formulation of policies.

For example, many people call Singapore a "fine city" in jest, as "fine" can mean both "good" and "fine" (as in a financial penalty).

For example, you can be fined for eating on public transport, smoking in public places and littering on the streets. Such fines use the attitude of "risk aversion" to regulate people's behaviour.

One example in this area is the fact that Singapore still retains two very traditional punishments - caning and hanging. According to those who have experienced caning for crimes committed, the pain is beyond words, and they say they do not want to go through such pain again.

Singapore's Government and policymakers understand that it is insufficient for policies to have a deterrent value only. People also desire justice and fairness. For example, no one is above the law when it comes to law enforcement. People who break the law will be punished severely regardless of who they are.

A classic instance was in early October when an official from the National Trades Union Congress posted derogatory remarks about Malays on her Facebook page. Within hours, she was fired by her employer and the outcome was made public.

In the interest of fairness, senior government officials receive high pay, but the Government does not give them any additional allowances, housing allocation or health-care benefits.

The poor have access to various assistance and support schemes, but access requires stringent checks and is limited to prevent abuses. These policies reflect fairness and justice.

Realistic view on gambling

SINGAPORE'S policy management also reflects the Government's ability to be objective and rational, and to act with courage when dealing with human nature.

In the past, Singapore's leaders used to object to the setting up of casinos on the island, fearing they would lead to social and moral problems.

But they realised later that they should regulate gambling instead of banning it altogether. Granting casino licences on a limited scale allows not only a closer regulation of the industry, but also the education and monitoring of gambling addicts, and helps prevent the emergence of illegal casinos and related organised crime.

In any case, many countries have eased restrictions on the gaming industry, so some gamblers have the option of going to other countries to gamble.

The Singapore Government decided to open two integrated resorts (IRs) after thorough debate, and allowed these two IRs to each set aside a small area for a casino. The two casinos have brought huge economic benefits to Singapore, and allowed the Government to streamline and mobilise efforts to tackle gambling addiction.

Strict penalties are in place to deal with those who flout the rules, and the Government is in the process of formulating even tougher regulations.

The traditional moral view is that gambling is not good. But given human nature and the fondness for taking risks and trying to make a fast buck, the simple act of slapping an "illegal" label on gambling may not be the most effective way to solve the problem.

The best way is to allow such actions to be regulated by law and reduce its negative social influence as far as possible, helping the public to boycott certain forms of gambling and curbing their urge to gamble, while involving society in regulation and education efforts.

Singapore can do this as it has a comprehensive and objective understanding of the human tendency to take risks.

High pay for public officials

STRONG determination and political will is necessary to maintain such a stand and allow the spirit to permeate public policies. Not every government can do it.

Take, for example, the high pay for senior officials in Singapore. It must have been a very difficult decision to implement the system because many people will think that those in public service, especially the senior officials, should embrace the public interest and not pursue private gain.

Giving high pay to government officials gives people the impression that a job in the public service is a way to get rich.

But public service is also a type of service and the people involved are normal people like us with families, relatives and friends. They face livelihood issues, pay for their children's education, and buy their own houses and cars. In other words, they have economic needs too.

So when people engaged in other services feel justified in getting their pay, especially in senior management, then it would be unfair if government officials do not receive salaries commensurate with their responsibilities.

This may then result in officials' rent-seeking behaviour as seen in many countries, or their using various allowances and benefits to boost their pay. Talented people may also shun politics for the business sector.

In the general election held in Singapore last year, some voters grumbled that ministerial pay in Singapore was too high.

After the election, the Government made a decision to lower salaries while generally maintaining the high pay structure. Such decisions need courage.

This realistic understanding of human nature, which permeates Singapore's public policies, is the essence of its management and the definition of its success.

It comes from the Singapore Government's acknowledgement that its people are its most valuable resource. With such understanding and respect, Singapore ensures that everyone in the nation maximises his potential and does his best in whatever he is doing.

This, in turn, transforms Singapore from a small island without any natural resources into a dazzling garden city.

The world should learn from Singapore its people-oriented spirit and imbue it in every public policy whenever possible.

The writer is assistant dean of the Nanyang Centre for Public Administration, Nanyang Technological University. He was formerly head of the International Exchange Centre of China Foreign Affairs University. This commentary appeared on Xinhuanet, a website of the Xinhua News Agency, on Dec 11.

TRANSLATED BY LIM RUEY YAN